


The Angels Did Sing

by clgfanfic



Category: Alias Smith and Jones, Highlander: The Series
Genre: Christmas, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 06:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clgfanfic/pseuds/clgfanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heyes and Curry run into MacLeod over the holidays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Angels Did Sing

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in the zine The Yule Tide #1 and then in Just You, Me and the Governor #22 under the pen name Lynn Gill.

          There had been very few times in the life of Hannibal Heyes when he'd felt like giving up, but this was one of them.  He glanced covertly at his partner, and wondered if the Kid would last another ten miles in the bitter cold.  The man's wounds weren't too bad, but the blood loss and cold temperatures were taking their toll.

          The thoughts were too depressing to pursue, and he forced them back into the corner of his mind, where they fretted on their own.

          Once, many years ago, he'd been in the Kid's place – shot, bleeding, near frozen to death, and on the run.  He'd been lucky that time.  They'd found refuge in a small Nevada town called Paradise.

          Heyes peered through the falling powder, and silently prayed for a similar miracle for the Kid.  They couldn't be that far from Porterville… could they?

          He winced with empathy when the Kid coughed, then swallowed a groan.  Heyes glanced furtively around, then admonished himself for the blatant display of paranoia.  Not that he didn't have cause.  They'd been hounded for days by a pair of shoot-first bounty hunters. 

          _One of 'em has to be an Apache_ , Heyes decided.  _We've got the worst damned luck with Apaches…_

          He kicked his heels into his gelding's flanks, the bay snorting and trotting up alongside Curry's mare just in time for Heyes to keep his friend from sliding out of the saddle.

          "Kid?  You okay?" he asked, steadying the man with a hand on his shoulder.

          It was a downright stupid question, and he felt like a fool for asking it, but there was little else he could do, or say.

          "Guess I was dozin' off," Curry supplied, his voice weak and slurred.

          _Damn those bounty hunters_ , Heyes fumed.  _If I hadn't let them get the drop on us this morning, the Kid'd be fine, and we'd be half the way to Canada by now!_

          But they did get the drop on them, and Curry took a bullet in the shoulder.  It wasn't his gun arm, but it was bad enough.

          The weather turned sour around noon, snow falling on and off the rest of the day.  Now it was nearing nightfall and the winds were picking up, whistling down off the eastern edge of the Rockies, rapidly dropping the temperature.

          They had to find shelter.

          Heyes grabbed his saddle horn as the bay spooked, side-stepping clumsily in the drifting snow.

          "Hold it, right there," a steady voice called from a stand of pine, bare aspen and cottonwood.

          "Okay, just don't do anything rash until we get this all figured out," Heyes responded immediately.  If it was the bounty hunters, maybe he could talk them into getting help for the Kid.

          "Heyes," Curry hissed softly.  "They'll kill us both."

          "Just sit tight.  We don't even know if these are the same ones who've been following us."

          There was noise and a handsome Appaloosa stepped out of the trees.  The young, handsome rider held a Winchester aimed at the two ex-outlaws.  "You Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones?" he asked in a soft Scottish burr.

          "Might be," Heyes replied cautiously.  "Who wants to know?"

          "MacLeod, Duncan MacLeod.  Sheriff Lom Trevors of Porterville, Wyoming, sent me to track you down."

          "Sheriff?" Heyes asked, giving MacLeod a placating smile as he rode up to join them.  "Now, I wonder what the sheriff of Porterville could want with a couple of fellows named Smith and Jones…?"

          MacLeod shrugged.  "I didn't ask, but I'd say it might have something to do with the fact that Smith and Jones are really Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry."  Duncan looked steadily at the Kid.  "And it might be the late Kid Curry if we don't get him to a doctor."

          "You think we're Heyes and Curry—?"

          "Heyes," the Kid interrupted.  "It's cold.  I'm bleedin'.  If this man says Lom sent him, then I'm for trustin' him.  Besides, he coulda killed us both if he'd wanted to.  And, personally, prison looks better than bleedin' or freezin' to death.  Any objections?"

          Heyes met his partner's tired gaze.  "No, Kid, not a one," he replied softly.  Looking back to MacLeod, pretenses dropped, he added, "How far are we from Porterville?"

          "'Bout five miles as the crow flies," Duncan responded.  "But I know a shorter route to the doctor's.  I'll get you there, then go tell Lom I found you."  He reined the Appaloosa around, starting into the trees.  "You led me on one hell of a chase."

          "What do you know about the men who shot my friend?" Heyes asked, his gloved fingers automatically inching toward his gun.

          "There's no need for that," MacLeod said, not bothering to turn around.  "I'm not a bounty hunter, but I do know one of the men who was tracking you.  I… dissuaded him from pursuing the matter."

          "You _dissuaded_ him?  How the hell did you do that?"

          "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Duncan said, amusement edging his voice.  "Consider it a Christmas present from Sheriff Trevors."

          "Heyes, I think we're gonna owe Lom one heck of a Christmas present," Curry replied through chattering teeth.

          "I think you might be right, Kid."

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

          Seated in front of the snapping fireplace, Heyes felt his eyes droop closed.  He shook his head and leaned forward, forcing himself awake.  His gaze focused on the clock sitting on the mantel.  The doctor had been with the Kid for nearly two hours.

          What could be taking so long?

          Standing, Heyes stepped closer to the fire, letting the warm glow creep into sore muscles.  It had been a close call.

          _Too damn close_ , he thought.  _When's the Governor going to come through with his side of the deal?  It's been damned near three years now.  Three very long, dangerous years.  Surely we've proven ourselves by now!  How many more close calls is it gonna take before one of us gets killed?_

          A knock at the front door brought the doctor's daughter sweeping out of the kitchen.  Heyes watched her almost skip into the foyer.  She was a pretty sixteen-year-old, with long red-blond hair and honey-colored eyes.  When the Kid was feeling better, he was going to find her good medicine.

          She opened the door and smiled.  MacLeod stepped into the foyer, followed by Sheriff Lom Trevors.

          "Lom?" Heyes called, smiling in spite of himself.

          The sheriff removed his hat and handed it to the girl, who hung it up on a rack next to her father's before taking MacLeod's and setting it next to the sheriff's.

          Lom hurried over to join Heyes next to the fire, warming his hands as he asked, "How's the Kid?"

          "Don't know," Heyes replied, watching the girl and MacLeod.  If he wasn't mistaken, she was smitten with the older man.  The Scotsman seemed to be treating the obvious case of puppy-love with the proper decorum.  MacLeod was all right.  A little full of himself, but all right.

          Heyes glanced back at Lom.  "The doctor's been in with him since MacLeod brought us here.  What's this all about, Lom?"

          "Well," the sheriff said, adding two more pieces of wood to the fire before easing down into a leather chair close by.  "It started off with a simple enough idea. I wanted to give you boys a Christmas present, so I decided I was goin' to put you up in my jail for the Holidays–"

          "That's some present, Lom," a voice said from behind them.

          Heyes and Trevors both jumped, the sheriff coming to his feet.

          "Kid," Heyes snapped.  "What are you doin' out of bed?"

          "That was exactly my question," a handsome woman replied, stepping out from behind the nightshirt-clad ex-outlaw.  "But he heard you talking out here and insisted on hearing everything himself."

          "Well, Mrs. Docker, Jed can be just about as stubborn as a mule when he takes a mind to," Lom explained with a relieved smile.

          Curry snorted his opinion of the comment, making his way to the couch.  He sat down, only to have Heyes arrange a blanket over his legs.  "Will you quit fussin'?"

          Heyes leveled his partner with a hurt look.  "Kid, you had me worried.  I—"

          "Mr. Curry will be just fine," Mrs. Docker said, stepping up to finish the job.  That done, she smiled at her husband as he joined them in the living room.  "Won't he, Harold."

          "Yes," the physician agreed, slipping an arm around his wife's shoulders as she joined him.  "A few weeks of solid rest, and a few more taking it easy, and I think Mr. Curry will regain full use of his shoulder."

          "Daddy's the best doctor in the whole world," the girl said, snaking an arm around her father's midsection and giving him a squeeze.

          "Anna, I'm sure these men will take that recommendation in the spirit in which it was given."

          They all chuckled.

          Anna and her mother excused themselves, promising to return soon with coffee and fresh cookies.

          Trevors motioned for MacLeod to join them, and he did, sitting on the opposite end of the couch from Curry.  Lom returned to the leather chair, Heyes opting for a spot on the raised hearth.  He still hadn't driven all the cold from his bones and the warmth was welcoming.

          The doctor walked over and poured a small glass of brandy for each of the men, excluding Curry, who tried hard not to pout.

          "You were saying you wanted us to spend Christmas in your jail?" Heyes prompted, swinging toward Trevors.

          "Well, I got to thinkin', where would you two boys be spendin' Christmas?  And I figured it'd be holed up someplace cheap and uninteresting—"

          "Actually, we were doing very nicely in a little town a day or so outside Denver.  Nice hotel, reasonably poor gamblers," Heyes interrupted.

          "Until the bounty hunters showed up," Curry reminded him.  "And recognized _you_."

          "Until they recognized _us_ ," Heyes corrected.  "Things went downhill pretty quick from that point."

          "You're lucky you aren't both dead," MacLeod said.  "Titus isn't usually such a poor shot."

          "I'm not usually such a poor ducker," Curry countered.

          MacLeod laughed and the Kid grinned.

          "The sheriff there in Boulder telegraphed me when the bounty hunters chased you two out of town.  Thought he'd better warn me that a couple of bad outlaws was headed my way," Trevors grinned and nodded to Duncan.  "MacLeod here agreed to go out looking for you."

          "You still haven't said why, Lom," Curry said.

          "I'm gettin' there, Kid.  Just give me time," the lawman chastised.

          Curry leaned back against the couch to wait the lawman out.

          "As I was saying, I asked MacLeod to go looking for you because he's one of the best darn trackers I've run across.  I figured with bounty hunters on your trail, if he could find you, you might be a little more willing than usual to come in to the jail.  It's all fixed up, by the way, tree and all."

          "How thoughtful," Heyes muttered.

          "I figured," Lom said over the comment, "I'd put you in and when the bounty hunters showed up, they'd see two outlaws under arrest and behind bars, not two free men enjoying a Christmas."

          "And they'd leave," Curry added.  "And we'd—"

          "Free men?" Heyes interrupted, his eyes going wide.

          Trevors grinned.  "Yep.  You see, I met MacLeod here for the first time when he delivered your papers from the Governor."

          "The Governor?" the Kid squeaked.  "He did it?  He finally did it?"

          "He sure did," Lom said, fishing into his pocket and pulling out two documents.  "Merry Christmas, boys," he said, handing them over.

          Heyes and Curry each opened their letters, reading their pardons through unshed tears.  When they were done, the two men looked at each other, huge smiles on their faces.

          "We did it!" Heyes bellowed.  "We actually did it!"

          "We sure did!"

          "A toast," MacLeod said, raising his glass.  "To a New Year… full of promise and new beginnings."

          "And good health," the doctor added.

          "And civic responsibility," Lom said.

          "And no more bounty hunters," the Kid added, holding up an imaginary glass.

          "And no more posses," was Heyes' contribution.

          The men drank down a gulp as the two women returned with a tray loaded with cups, coffee, and a plate stacked high with steaming gingerbread cookies.  Hands reached greedily for the warm pastry.

          "So, what're you gonna do now?" Lom asked, slapping Heyes' hand away and helping himself to several cookies before the ex-outlaw could beat him to it.

          Heyes and Curry exchanged glances.

          "Uh, I don't rightly know," Heyes admitted.  "We never really got around to talkin' about that, did we?"

          The Kid shook his head.

          "Well, there'll be plenty of time to worry about that later," Lom said.  "Right now, eat, drink, and be merry.  And tomorrow, if the Kid's feeling up to it, there are some folks in town who want to see you."

          "Reporters?" Curry asked, his good cheer fading.

          "Nope.  Friends of yours.  When I got the papers from the Governor, I sent some telegrams to some of the folks you'd told me about.  A few of them were able to make it."

          "There's one hell of a Christmas party planned," MacLeod said softly, his gaze flickering quickly to Anna's.  It appeared he already had a date lined up.

          Heyes and Curry grinned.  "Lom, we don't know what to say."

          "Merry Christmas is as good a place as any to start."

          "Merry Christmas!" they chorused.

 

The End


End file.
